During the TC65 Plenary meeting each working group gives an activity report that summarizes the status of standards that are being developed or updated. At the Hamburg meeting, March 31- April 4th I was a delegate to the SC65B and SC65C meeting and lead the US delegation in the SC65E meeting. The reports by Peer Zgorzelski on activity of SC65E/WG2 and SC65B/ JWG7, 8 to develop different parts of the IEC61987 standard drew a lot of attention in the meeting. As detailed in IEC 61987 – 10, “this standard series proposes a method which will help both suppliers and users of measuring equipment to optimize workflows both within their own companies and in their exchanges with other companies. The method specifies measuring equipment by means of blocks of properties. These blocks are compiled into lists of properties (LOPs), each of which describes a specific equipment (device) type. This standard series covers both properties that may be used in an inquiry or a proposal and detailed properties required for integration of the equipment in computer systems for other tasks.” In his presentation, Peter showed a slide that detailed the areas currently addressed by the various parts of this standard. Some of information contained in his slide is duplicated in the drawing below.

The creation of lists of properties (LOPs) will ultimately lead to a more consistency means of describing products used within the process industry. Many companies in Europe are contributing to this effort. The list of properties is currently maintained in the IEC Common Data Directory (CDD) and can be accessed through the web.